On summer days, kids free to soar

Camp in LR works a little magic for special-needs children

Hailey Fuller (from left), Olivia Fitzgibbon, Sydney Roberts and other Camp Aldersgate campers participate in nature activities with counselor Brittney Green (center background) in a wheelchair-accessible treehouse Thursday.
Hailey Fuller (from left), Olivia Fitzgibbon, Sydney Roberts and other Camp Aldersgate campers participate in nature activities with counselor Brittney Green (center background) in a wheelchair-accessible treehouse Thursday.

The path from the front office of Camp Aldersgate starts out with black pavement winding through manicured lawns.

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Counselors Brighton Barnard (second from left) and Sarah Sweet (center right) aim to energize campers as they exit a wheelchair-accessible treehouse at Camp Aldersgate in Little Rock on Thursday.

A wooden water tower juts up next to a metal building and golf carts yield to one another as they maneuver between a stone building and a swimming pool area.

Right past a full-size carousel of plastic horses and engraved banners with words such as "Imagine" and "Believe" is an opening into the forest that covers the 120-acre lot in the middle of the Little Rock metropolis.

Tree limbs hang down to the dirt-covered trail. The narrow path winds left then juts right; hills pop up around curves; the hum of insects and the tweeting of birds mingle with the breeze of the summer day.

The only difference between this and the multitude of public hiking trails in the state is the hard-plastic, honeycomb-patterned material laid right beneath the dust of the path.

And the rectangular white traffic signs warning that the 5 mph speed limit for wheelchairs is radar enforced.

"It's so important that the kids have a life without limits here," said Kara Evans, family-support and clinic-care coordinator for the Arkansas Muscular Dystrophy Association.

It was MDA Week at Camp Aldersgate, a nonprofit organization that provides a full camp experience for special-needs children. The camp, which is off Kanis Road, was formally dedicated in 1947.

The state Muscular Dystrophy Association provided funding for 47 special-needs children this summer to attend a weeklong camp free of charge. The Arkansas organization showed the most growth -- from 33 campers in 2015 -- in the nation among all other Muscular Dystrophy Association chapters, according to a report from the national office.

Evans was quick to give credit to the organization's supporters who increased financial donations and the Muscular Dystrophy Association staff.

"They worked tirelessly to grow the name of Arkansas Muscular Dystrophy Association," Evans said. "They're letting people in Arkansas know that we are here. The people of Arkansas are constantly showing up for us. We've gained 150 people who registered with us in the last year."

Camp Aldersgate has 16 year-round staff members, more than 55 summer staff counselors, and 182 teenage volunteers, as well as a team of nurses and volunteer doctors to provide medical care. Last year more than 330 children attended the camp during its seven-week summer session.

Campers stay from Sunday to Friday. Each of the seven weeks brings together children facing the same medical challenges such as spina bifida, diabetes, cardiac problems, arthritis, kidney disease, cancer and asthma. Two weeks out of the summer are dedicated to children with various disabilities and their nondisabled siblings and friends.

Camp Aldersgate also has year-round programming that includes weekend camps for special-needs children and a day program for senior citizens.

Raucous laughter echoed from a clearing right before the path ends. A group of girls congregated -- some in wheelchairs or walkers -- around a row of benches and a miniature wooden water tower with white paper cone cups on top.

Madalyn Havniear, 7, was looking for her next hair-braiding customer. A ponytail holder in hand, the little blond girl scanned the crowd.

"Have you ever given a redhead a ponytail before?" asked Brighton Barnard, a teenage volunteer, her eyes wide and exaggerated excitement in her voice.

She grabbed Jessie Thomas, a camp counselor with long, bright red hair, by the shoulders and pushed her toward the seat in front of Madalyn.

Evans laughed as she watched Madalyn divide Thomas' red hair into three sections then lap one over the other to form a braid.

"You won't believe it, but Madalyn was so shy when she first got to camp," Evans said. "Now she will talk to anybody."

The groups' attention suddenly turned upward, to a stand three-quarters the way up a tall pine tree. Two volunteers were working a system of rope and pulleys from the tree stand as others on the ground moved Olivia Fitzgibbon, 16, from her wheelchair to a blue foam chair with yellow and red harnesses.

A wave from the ground crew and Fitzgibbon was pulled high into the tree where the contraption was hooked to a zip line. The girls on the ground chanted "Olivia" as the teenager flew high above them, down a cable into the trees.

Fitzgibbon, a small-framed, brown-haired, quiet-mannered teenager from Little Rock, was diagnosed at 2 years old with congenital myopathy.

This is her ninth year at Camp Aldersgate. She met her best friend, Sydney Roberts, 16, at camp the first year. Even though Fitzgibbon lives in Little Rock and attends eStem Public Charter School and Roberts lives in Bentonville and attends Life Way Christian School, the teenagers visit often and stay in constant contact.

The two finished each other's sentences as they sat under the roof of a pavilion at the camp.

"You just keep going," Fitzgibbon said, then shrugged when asked how she deals with the lifelong disease. "You can't really change it so you might as well find the fun parts in it. There's a big acceptance part that goes with this."

Roberts bobbed her head in agreement and slung a blue-and-purple tinted braid over her left shoulder.

"Yeah, you do have to accept it. That's really big," Roberts said. "And I struggled with that a lot just because ... I don't know. You're different and it feels awkward."

Fitzgibbon quietly chimed in with "Feels kind of unfair."

The statement elicited a wide, brace-filled smile from Roberts.

"Yeah, but you kinda gotta be like, 'This is how I was made.' You just kinda learn how to, I don't know, deal with it, live with it," she said.

Fitzgibbon smiled.

"If I didn't have muscular dystrophy, I wouldn't be here at Camp Aldersgate," she said. "I wouldn't have met all these awesome people. Would've never met Sydney. You just have to think about all the things this disease has brought you."

Brittney Green, 17, a counselor at Camp Aldersgate for two years and a volunteer for five years before that, said her experience with the organization has mapped out her future. A senior at Bryant High School, Green plans to get her doctorate in occupational therapy so she can continue working with children like her charges at Camp Aldersgate.

"I get so much from them," Green said. "You learn to stop and pay attention to what's around you. There's a lot of things that people who don't have any type of disease take for granted, like the opportunities and things we do."

She said her friends often ask her what she does at camp and are surprised when she tells them about fishing, canoeing and zip-lining.

"People are like, 'They can do that?' and I'm like, 'Yeah!' We make it happen," Green said. "There's a lot of motivation that the kids give to me in so many ways. A lot of ways they push me harder. Even though they don't know it, they give me that push that 'Hey, you can do it.'"

Michelle Norman, a family-support and clinical-care coordinator visiting Arkansas from the Kansas Muscular Dystrophy Association, said seeing special-needs children have a true summer camp experience -- complete with fishing, canoeing and leather crafting -- is also life-changing for the adults who witness it.

"The fact that we give them the opportunity to really live unlimited with their disability is something you just cannot put into words. Looking up at a child and seeing that pure joy on their face and knowing that we did that. We made this possible for this kid. There are no words," Norman said. "Seeing a kid at the end of the week, with all they've accomplished, you truly see a different child from the kid they came in as. Their confidence has exploded.

"There are just no words for what that does to a person's heart."

Metro on 06/19/2016

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